


As the Stars Shine

by Swangooseduck



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-26 18:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15668904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swangooseduck/pseuds/Swangooseduck
Summary: Fay feels like a royal screw up. And with the death of her grandmother still so fresh, she's not in the best place in life to be leading an army of heroes against other kingdoms. And yet when summoned, Fay has no choice but to take up the legendary weapon, and fight. Can she become the leader Askr needs her to be? Can she become the person her grandmother always said she would?





	1. Prologue

Fay lay atop her quilted bedspread, studying the the glow stars on her ceiling. They glowed a soft blue green hue that mirrored her teary eyes. They were too alike--artificial, cheap, and a tad childish in their charm.

She fought the sobs. She couldn’t cry now. She had to sleep, to rest, and to wake early and get her rear into work on time. The funeral was done, and now it was time to be an adult again. There were bills to pay, work to be done, and crying herself sick wouldn’t help her do those things, or win her any sympathy. 

Fay turned over, chiding herself. She had to be stronger. Even though she knew that suppressing the grief was harmful long term, she couldn’t take it on top of fighting with her mother, and trying to hold a job down. She could break down when she had a place of her own, a career with real vacations and sick days. Then she could take a week, visit her grandmother’s old friends and favorite haunts--see the fields of Bluebonnets her grandmother loved so much... She just needed to hold on until then. 

She turned, trying to make herself comfortable, and looking helplessly to her fake stars. It had been her decorative splurge--a luxury she’d wanted as a child, that now she could afford to place liberally over her ceiling. Despite the chastisement of her mother about her wasting money, and the bemused look of her father, who saw them as a bit too young for a woman in her twenties, Fay treasured their gentle glow. They were the only stars she could reach for and actually grasp. 

Fay sat up, tears running, despite her efforts. She rolled to her feet, wiping her eyes as she teetered on the mattress. Her fingers extended to the edge of a small star, pulling it free from it’s space. She grasped it, sniffling as she sat.

“Please…” She wished, feeling small and hopeless. “If there is any good in the world….let her have been right about me.” 

Fay curled up, gripping the plastic star to her chest as she cried quietly, falling into an exhausted sleep.


	2. When you Wish upon a Star

  
  
  


She’d slept in. Fay knew it the moment her eyes opened, as she sat up, her mother’s glare on her. Linda was considered an attractive woman, though few could withstand the fury she could inflict her dark eyes, and pinched lips, which now loomed guiltily over her daughter. 

“Yes,” She said, voice taut with barely concealed anger as she spoke into the phone’s receiver. “She’s here.” She thrust the phone out, eyes flashing as she mouthed the horrible pronouncement. “It’s your job.”

Fay took it, her throat tight. “Hello?”

“Fay, honey,” Her boss’s tone was a gentle, soothing sound, like water over a burn. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah. My alarm needs new batteries, I guess,” She lied helplessly. “I’m getting dressed right now, Mrs. Hammond, and I’ll be there--”

“Oh honey, no,” Mrs. Hammond murmured. “I knew you weren’t coming in today...Your Grandma’s service was yesterday--I was just calling to make sure you hadn’t left. You don’t need to be working right now.”

Fay didn’t know whether to be relieved or horrified. “I…”

“If it’s about the money, don’t worry,”  Her boss went on. “The servers and I have the tip jar for you, and I know the regulars aren’t tossing twenties into it for Ernie’s coffee.”

There was a muffled sound of latino curses, as Ernesto made it perfectly clear his opinion of his boss’s comment. There were a few whoops and chuckles following it, and a chorus of female groans and complaints. Fay half-smiled. God, there were some wonderful people in her life.

“Anyway, you go back to sleep, and don’t you even think of showing up here for at least three days, ya’hear?”

“Christ woman!” A male voice--Robbie, if Fay had to guess--howled. “You’re going to get us killed of food poisoning!”

“Mrs. Hammond--”

“Not another word ma’am,” Her boss cut her off. “I’ll bring you your pay tonight, okay? You just rest, and be sad, okay?”

“Okay…” Fay struggled against her tears. “Thank you.”

“For what?” The woman snorted. “You did the same for Sam--Don’t think I forgot you covered her shift and tips. Be a little greedy.”

“Right…”

“Good girl,” Mrs. Hammond praised gently. “I’ll see you tonight,”

“Alright,” Fay agreed. “See you then.”

She could still feel her mother’s disapproving eyes on her as she hung up and set the phone down. She had to fight to keep herself neutral and blank. No tears. She looked terrible enough without them to make her seem smaller.

“She fire you?” 

“No,” Fay managed flatly. “She told me to take some days off--”

“You can’t afford that, Fay,” Her mother hissed. “You’ve got bills to pay, and work to do. You can’t just sit around and mope because your grandmother died--life goes on.”

“It’s paid leave,” Fay managed. 

The tension in her face lessoned. “I see…” She nodded. “Then I guess you want to sleep in?”

The question felt double edged. She did want to go back to sleep. Her mind still felt foggy and slow, while her body ached. But then again, she’d already slept in an hour, and doubtless there were chores to be done. There was always laundry and dishes, and Fay never really kept a tidy room.

“Just a little longer.” She admitted. “Then I’ll be up to help clean.”

Her mother nodded curtly, taking the home phone. “You can start with this mess.” She gestured to the small heap of clothes Fay had been too tired to sneak into the wash the night before. With that, her mother left, leaving her door open just a crack behind her. 

Fay bit back a goran and crawled out of bed to shut it, before burrowing back into her sheets. The point of the little plastic star she’d peeled off the ceiling dug into her thigh. This time she did groan, reaching to take it in hand and glare at it.

“Couldn’t manage a wish, huh?” She asked it. “Guess that’s not your fault…I’m not a weekend project.”

Fay turned to bury her head into her pillow. She couldn’t understand for the life of her why she was this way. She knew she allowed herself to be kowtowed. She knew she let the comments bite her too hard. And she knew it was insanity to let those words push her into a corner and create such horrible habits. And yet she had.

She eyd the pile of clothes. She used to walk them to the laundry room every night. Until her mother made a biting comment once on how she just made more laundry and more work. Since then she’d taken to sneaking them into the wash when her mother was out or asleep. She couldn’t complain about laundry she never saw. Except then it sat in a heap in Fay’s room.

Fay glanced at the rest of the chaos. Half finished art projects, a few candy wrappers, a bag of pretzels, and a shopping bag. More stuff she snuck around. She couldn’t have her mother knowing she spent money, or there would be a fight on hand about she handled her finances, and another demand that the wise matron be allowed to see her daughter’s bank accounts and help her budget properly. Fay might have been passive about a lot of things, but by god, she would not surrender that. 

Fay sat up, giving up on that precious extra hour or so, and instead set to sweeping up stray bits of debris. Paints were put in their box, and shoved into the closet, brushes stored similarly, sewing things stuffed into the spare drawer, along with the crochet and needlework. Soon the drawing pads were also placed in the backpack, sandwiched between school books and library books. Stray wrappers were stuffed into empty shopping bags and tied neatly, while Fay shoved the laundry to the side to deal with later. Maybe her mother would go shopping or something.

Once she had the room an some semblance of array, she picked up the little blue green star, and hopped onto her bed. It took her a moment to locate the empty space she’d pried it from the night before, but once there, she added another smudge of clay-like adhesive, and stood on tiptoes to apply it.

That’s when the light sparked in front of her. It was too fast for her to react to--a swirl of blue lights spiraling into a frame of what looked to be a realistic painting. Fay could see every detail of the dark stoned castle, the desperate looks of a red head clad in white and golden armor, behind her a large stone that reminded Fay of the legends of King Arthur and Excalibur. Just as these details came to focus, the sparks engulfed her, pulling her into the beautiful painting, and into a scene she didn’t understand. 

Fay stumbled forward, plastic star in hand, clothes suddenly thin and not at all warm enough, her bare feet scraping against mossy stone. The readhead beamed as Fay caught herself, and stood upright in her pajamas. The wind sliced through her thin nightclothes, making Fay shiver.

“Oooh!” The redhead let out a cry of excitement. “You’re here?”

Fay blinked, dumbly. “Yes?”

“Then the ritual actually worked?!”

“Ritual?”

The redhead cleared her throat. “Oh great, Hero from another world! Thou hast come so far to fulfill your role in our legend! For our kingdom now stands on the very brink of ruin and thou….thou...” She rolled to a stop, squinting at the pajama clad girl. “Hold on. Are you really our great Hero? You don’t look like the Thee and thou type.”

“Are...you making fun of me?” Fay scowled, looking around. No….No prank. The temperature alone convinced her of that. It was too cool, and to damp to be her home. Notwithstanding the unlikeliness that anyone would even pull such an elaborate prank, much less now. 

She turned back to the redheaded woman. “No, Sorry...Where am I, exactly? And how did I get here?”

“Fair enough,” The woman grimaced. “You’re in--”

A cry cut her off. A man in armor roared at the sight of them, snapping up a large axe as he lumbered towards them, calling out taunts.

“Drat!” The woman hissed. “How did they get here already?” She shot a glance at Fay. “Stand back! I’ll take care of this one!”

Whether it was her tone, the gloved hand reaching for a large formidable axe of her own, or the determined set of her jaw that convinced her, Fay couldn’t say. Maybe all of them. All she knew was that was in her Pajamas, clutching a plastic star, and about to be attacked by a knight with an axe.


	3. The divine Not a gun

  
  
  


The fight was short, but intense. The redhead darted towards her opponent, meeting him midway in the courtyard. He swung hard, but she took the hit with a mere grunt and returned the blow twofold. The soldier crumpled, fading in a white light. 

“Whew!” The redhead turned back, resting her axe lightly over her shoulders, as if it were no more than a baseball bat she’d used to score a homerun. “We took care of him.”

“We?”

“Ah!” The redhead nodded. “Right, my name’s Anna. I’m the Commander of the Order of Heroes.”

Fay sat perched on a rock, listening to her defender explain their situation. Something about enslaving heroes and invasions. Kingdoms at war, and the mission of their order. Fay was still a bit in shock after seeing this spritely redhead dispatch a hulking soldier with only a few hacks of her large axe. 

“I was desperate for help,” Anna went on, either not seeing the the blank look of disbelief, or ignoring it. “So I performed the summoning ceremony, and you just appeared out of nowhere!” She grinned. “Lucky us!”

“I think your definition of luck is a bit askew,” Fay frowned. “I’m sorry, but what exactly is you expect me to do?”

“Of course,” Anna beamed. “First thing’s first. I summoned you here with the divine weapon, Breidablik.”

“The what now?”

“It’s the name of the relic I brought,” She reached down to her side and held up what looked like a heavy, ivory pistol, trimmed in gold knotwork, similar to Anna’s uniform and armor. “It fires something out of it, according to legend, but it sure doesn’t look like any bow I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s a gun.” Fay stated flatly. 

“Is...that like a key?” Anna tipped her head slightly, index finger tapping her chin thoughtfully. “The legends call it ‘the true key’ that if raised high, would summon the great hero who could fire it.”

“You’re kidding.” Fay deadpanned. 

“Not at all,” The commander’s sunny aura dimmed. “I was able to summon you by following the legends. And now you’re here.” 

“Now I’m here…” Fay agreed, looking around herself once more. She wanted to believe in every cliche thing this could be--prank, dream,hallucination, madness--except none of them fit neatly into describing this. There were too many mental leaps in judgement to make any of them work, and that was something she simply couldn’t bring herself to do, no matter how normal or comforting it would’ve been. 

Anna pressed the ornate weapon into Fay’s hands. “Well this is yours now. Hopefully you can figure out how to--”

Another cry broke the conversation. Two more soldiers were running toward them now, axe and bow in hand. Anna hissed in frustration as she hefted her axe. 

“Drat! More Emblians...And too many for me alone.” She looked back at Fay, scowling sharply. “And you’re not equipped to fight.” Her eyes swiveled back towards the approaching foes. “I’ll hold them off while you--”

“I have a  _ gun _ .” Fay’s finger went to the trigger as she pointed it towards the nearing enemies. She squeezed, hoping there were enough bullets in the thing to accommodate for her aim. She hadn’t been to a range since her father had bought the saturday night special for the family’s protection, and forced everyone in the house to practice with it. Fay had liked shooting paper targets well enough, but the costs had been too much to keep it as a hobby, so doubtless her aim was going to be rusty.

The Breideblik kicked in her hands, solid and smooth. It was shockingly silent, but bright and near blinding. Everyone paused as the light coalesced into the form of a pewter haired man bearing a bow of his own. He turned to Fay, giving her an elaborate bow.

“I am Virion,” He announced, voice accented and a bit foppish to Fay’s ears. “The finest archer of the fairest realms. Delighted to be of service.” He winked at her.

Anna turned to her, gawking. “You summoned a hero!”

“He’s a what now?”

“Nevermind! We need to take care of these Emblian!”

“Of course!” Virion agreed.

Fay stood back as they charged forward to dispatch the thoroughly confused soldiers. She looked down, studying the intricate knotwork and details of the divine weapon in her hands. She’d shot a man into being from it. No...She’d pulled a him from his world to this one--like what the commander had been talking about. Like she’d been pulled from her own. Suddenly the Breideblik felt heavy in her hands.

“Not a gun.” The realization turned her stomach. “Not a gun…”


End file.
